Wouldn’t it be great if students could build science, literacy and math practices while stimulating curiosity, generating enthusiasm, improving physical well-being, and reducing stress? They can – outdoors!

Here is an approach to create school site maps that highlight walkable destinations and routines organized for every grade and for grade spans, K–5. The routines are organized to emphasize specific practices for each grade band (K–1, 2–3 and 4–5) that build in sophistication and complexity across the grade levels. Routines for grades K–1 emphasize making observations, asking questions and learning to record and communicate observations through drawings and words. Routines for grades 2–3 reflect the advancing language, thinking and writing/drawing skills of the students by emphasizing observing, recognizing and explaining patterns, and communicating ideas. Grade 4–5 routines emphasize communicating and making explanations and arguments supported by evidence.

Where to walk

One of the most important parts of this Approach to Walking Field Trips is mapping and highlighting accessible destinations and walking routes for teachers to use with their class. Many schools have nearby parks with trees, grassy fields, and some wildlife; some schools may be walking distance to a shoreline habitat or near nurseries, community gardens, and vegetable markets. Many of the learning routines presented here can also be used around the schoolyard — on a grassy field, in the garden, or even on a blacktop.

To launch this mapping project, walk the school grounds and neighborhoods surrounding each school. Look for natural settings and objects, open spaces, and landscapes that are suitable for a whole class to gather and can be explored through the observation and journaling routines.

Record routes and estimated walking time, destinations and points of interest on maps, one for each school site, to help teachers plan the outdoor, walking lessons. Google maps is a tool that can be used to create maps. It allows districts to highlight worthwhile outdoor spots and destinations, phenomena and notes through easily shareable links.

Walking Field Trip Routines

The Approach to Walking Field Trips offers a set of Starting and General Routines (routines are activities that are designed to be used multiple times with different phenomena and/or prompts) to be used with students of all grades to provide opportunities to practice targeted practices. The sets of Grade-Band routines that follow engage students in using these practices to build their understanding of their local environment.

The Starting and General Routines provide basic practice support for all other routines as students move from one grade to the next. Eventually, the Starting and General Routines may become so familiar to students that they only need a quick refresher each time they use them. 

The Grade-Band routines are aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards. They follow the science and engineering practices’ grade-band progressions; introduce crosscutting concepts such as patterns, cause and effect, and stability and change; and are best sprinkled into the curriculum strategically over the school year. They may be done repeatedly throughout a year, as students will inevitably notice new things as the seasons change.

The routines are primarily from the Lawrence Hall of Science’s BEETLES project and Laws and Lygren’s recently published How to Teach Nature Journaling. (Activities from the BEETLES project are marked with a “(B)” and activities from How to Teach Nature Journaling are marked with an “(LL)”). All of which have been thoroughly tested by both teachers and students. While most were written and tested with 4th–8th grade students, they are included because teachers have reported adapting them for younger grades. This blog post from BEETLES and this article from How to Teach Nature Journaling offer specific suggestions on adapting these materials. We also recommend practicing all the routines and walking routes with adults first (e.g., as part of the beginning of the year professional learning), if possible.

Depending on district priorities, teacher expertise, and local context, additional activities can be added or swapped. The following is one example of how to build out a set of outdoor routines across grades and school sites.

Starting Routines — for every grade

To set the stage for walking field trips, we recommend every grade level begin each school year with a series of activities that offer basic tools for observing, exploration, recording, discussion, and working together as the students begin to explore their local natural environment. These activities set the stage for further outdoor learning. These are the targeted practices and activity write-ups for the starting routines.

Before teachers begin using any of these activities, they should peruse the Teaching Support resources on the website How to Teach Nature Journaling by John Muir Laws and Emilie Lygren. Repeated use of notebooks establishes and reinforces habits that support data gathering, creativity, and sensemaking and helps students see the outdoors as part of their science notebooking. The resources on this webpage support teachers to introduce notebooking activities, increase student engagement, adapt activities for younger students, and provide feedback on student drawings.

Making observations using a hand lens. Routine: Hand lens introduction (B)
Students learn how to effectively use hand lenses to investigate a natural object. This activity can support the invitational stage of many lessons and provides students with a tool that can enhance other activities.

Making observations and asking questions. Routine: I Notice I Wonder It Reminds Me Of (B)
This routine can be used to promote curiosity and build observation practice, simply connecting with the environment, as an introduction for a focused exploration or investigation, or as a prelude to poetry or descriptive writing. Observations are made out loud but can also be recorded in a journal when desired and can be a springboard for poetry or other writing.

Developing discourse. Routine: Thought Swap/Walk and Talk (B)
A general routine for one-on-one peer discussion in the field that can be used while stationary or while walking. It is particularly useful for moving students from place to place.

Building SEL. Routine: Social Emotional Learning Routine (B)
This routine provides opportunities for students to reflect on their skills, strengths, and learning processes, as well as their contributions to the class community. It is done in combination with another activity or physical challenge.

General Routines — for every grade

Once teachers have the starting routines under their belts, they choose some of the general routines to further engage students in outdoor exploration and build basic observation and recording practices.

• For locations that will be visited repeatedly, choose Sit Spot or Change Over Time activities. 

• For explorations of what lives in different places, choose Discovery Swap. 

Choosing any of the writing routines to focus on over the year will expand the language component of outdoor explorations.

Making observations, journaling, and communication practices. Routine: Discovery Swap (B)
Students search for, observe, research, and share discoveries about organisms and record information about their organism in their journal. 

Using reflection, observation, self-direction, journaling. Routine: Sit Spot (LL)
Students will connect to the environment by spending quiet time outside. Students find their own place to sit outside and pay attention to their surroundings in whatever way they choose. Experiences can be recorded in a journal. This can be repeated over the year to notice change or connect to/observe the environment in different ways. Choose a location that is easily accessible so it can be visited repeatedly.

Exploring cause and effect, stability, and change. Routine: Change over time (LL)
Students observe and record changes in a particular organism, landscape feature, or place over time. 

Using writing to reflect. Writing Routine: Poetry of place and moment (LL)
Students build poems from observations.

Using writing to observe and think. Writing Activity: Writing to observe, writing to think (LL)
Students build skills in using writing to capture, record, and convey information and ideas from their observations.
Note: This is intended to be a one-time activity rather than a routine.

Grade-Band Routines K–1

Routines for grades K–1 emphasize making observations, asking questions, and learning to record and communicate observations through drawings and words. These practices provide a foundation from which students can discover patterns, explore cause and effect relationships, and, ultimately, interpret and explain phenomena. Educators describe modifying these routines in a variety of ways for these younger learners, including using visual aids, encouraging students to communicate through drawings, and leading the routine as a whole-group activity.

Collecting and sorting. Routine: Envirolopes scavenger hunt (Outdoor Biology)
Envirolopes is a highly adaptable scavenger hunt routine for exploring the environment: it can be general or targeted (colors, shapes, living things, non-living things, a mix, and so on). Students can sort, compare, and discuss their findings. 

Using symbols to record observations. Routine: Sound map (Edible Schoolyard)
Students sit in one spot and draw symbols on a map representing the sounds they hear. This can be done in different places or at different times of the day or year.

Exploring and mapping. Routine: Event map (LL)
This routine is for exploring an environment and making a simple map of discoveries and features as students move along a walking path. It can be used, for example, on a neighborhood walk, a walk across a habitat or park, along a hiking path, around the schoolyard, and/or through a garden.

Making comparisons. Routine: Comparisons (LL)
Students observe and sketch/diagram two natural objects side by side, observe and list similarities and differences using journaling (drawing/diagrams, words and numbers). They can discuss patterns, cause and effect, and structure and function.

Grade-Band Routines 2–3

Routines for grades 2–3 reflect the advancing language, thinking, and writing/drawing skills of the students. Building on the practices developed in the K–1 routines, activities in grades 2–3 emphasize observing, recognizing and explaining patterns, and communicating. Students make more complex and focused observations, use new tools to discover, describe and interpret patterns, ask scientific questions, use their observations to explore possible answers to their questions, and engage in discussions inspired by a broader range of crosscutting concepts.

Changing perspectives using scale. Routine: Zoom in, Zoom out (LL)
Students observe and draw a natural object in three scales: life-size, up close, and distant (with context). 

Connecting an organism (trees) to their environment. Routine: Tree Exploration (B)
Students record observations, questions, and explanations, then collaboratively interpret a diagram. This requires an area with at least three types of trees.
Note: While this entire activity is not well suited to be used multiple times over the school year, you can build off of this routine to have students identify trees in different areas and learn about many different tree species.

Quantitative observations, using measuring tools. Activity: Hidden Figures (LL)
Students practice quantifying parts of nature and use measurements and numbers to find patterns.
Note: This was developed to be a one-time activity rather than a routine.

Grade-Band Routines 4–5

Grade 4–5 routines emphasize communicating and making explanations and arguments supported by evidence. Learners also study nature as a text in the same way they might study fiction, nonfiction, art, or other texts, by using observations, making comparisons, explaining, and making text to self and text to world connections.

Asking scientific questions. Routine: Interview an Organism (B)
Students find and ask questions about the organism’s appearance and structures, which they attempt to answer through observations; they then discuss more probing questions about the organism’s behavior, ecosystem, and relationships to other organisms.

Constructing explanations. Routine: Mysteries and explanations (LL)
Students expand their curiosity and deepen their thinking practices as they make explanations about their questions and observations and consider the evidence needed to support their explanations; experience with I Notice, I Wonder, It Reminds Me Of is a prerequisite for this activity. 

Making an argument from evidence. Routine: Argumentation Routine (B)
This routine is a series of steps to help students develop the practice of scientific argumentation as they evaluate different claims based on evidence and reasoning. It can be used when competing claims come up during the discussion of a rich question, a complex issue, or while a group is trying to explain something puzzling or intriguing that they have found in nature. 

Conduct an Exploratory Investigation. Routine: Exploratory Investigation (B)
Students observe and record patterns in nature through a “first draft” investigation, then think about how the investigation could be improved in the future.

Rationale

A growing body of evidence shows that taking learning outdoors supports student health and learning while also fostering students’ sense of place and building environmental literacy. This important idea is taking hold all over California and is codified in our state’s Blueprint for Environmental Literacy.

Our Approach to Walking Field Trips is designed to help teachers augment their existing classroom curriculum with experiences in the local natural environment, including neighborhoods, schoolyards, local parks, and shorelines. By focusing on the students’ local environment, learning becomes more meaningful and its benefits easily accessible to all teachers and students.

The Approach to Walking Field Trips presents a program of simple, age-appropriate outdoor routines for grades K–1, 2–3, and 4–5 that encourage students to connect with their local environment through science practices and interdisciplinary studies. These activities can be used regularly (weekly or multiple times per month) in local natural environments to support and augment core academic curriculum and students’ developing environmental literacy. The program can also be part of a larger district outdoor learning plan that might also include longer, grade-level specific outdoor activities that are connected to adopted curriculum materials; school garden programs; local and global social and environmental justice project-based units; and other environmental literacy initiatives.; school garden programs; local and global social and environmental justice project-based units; and other environmental literacy initiatives.

Just as students are learning to read, understand, interpret, and critique texts in history, English language arts, or math, they also study nature as text. Learners can study nature the same way they would a work of fiction, nonfiction, art, and so on. Just as good readers draw on their past experiences, ask questions, and make comparisons and explanations to interpret text, naturalists, scientists, and environmental problem solvers also draw on their personal experiences and knowledge to understand and connect to the natural world. As students' interest is piqued by their local environment, their ability to study nature as a text will improve their ability to look at texts of all kinds.